Ivy Lin
Ivy Lin teaches science as her day job, and in her spare time reviews dance for Bachtrack. She also obsesses over her 20-year-old cat Pumpkin. Ivy is excited to be back in this wonderful, vibrant opera community after a long hiatus. If she were singing opera, she'd still be cast as Despina until she was in a wheelchair. You can follow Ivy on insta as poisonivy326. Although she's mellowed from her "poisonivy" days she still had a discussion recently with her editor about being "too harsh" in her reviews.
Lost and found
Verdi must have gotten tired of tossing and turning by now and has gone back to resting in peace.
Moon and stars
One of the major complaints about the five year casting system (as well as the shared productions by different companies) is that operatic events are rarely surprises anymore.
Snow business
Every year I say I’m not going to another La Bohème because I’ve seen this too many times.
Levee duty
If you are of the belief that Show Boat can stand on its own as a classic score and thus doesn’t need the trappings of musical production, you’ll love the New York Philharmonic’s “semi-staged” production.
Side eye and bitch face
At the first intermission at last night’s Met revival of Aida, I turned to my companion and said, “So… what about the Aida? I thought she was supposed to be good.”
Ten thousand bedrooms
The Metropolitan Opera desperately needed a new production of Le nozze di Figaro.
Pape music
There is something so very Don Draper about René Pape .
Juan and two
I always think of Don Giovanni as half of the greatest opera ever written. Or, actually, about 2/3 of the greatest opera ever written.
The dark side of the moon
After viewing Stefan Herheim’s production of Rusalka, I’ve got a new category: “regie slick.”
Bomb scare
The appeal of Ariadne auf Naxos (for me anyway) is the acknowledgment that underneath it all, opera (and all other forms of “high art”) is really show business.
Rich man’s frug
A good performance of a Rossini opera buffa usually bubbles along merrily.
Lost in space
It’s rare to encounter a video of an opera that has zero redeeming qualities, but I think I might have found it: the latest Arena di Verona La Traviata.
Play your hunch
Bel Canto at Caramoor is something that I’ve always wanted to attend but never have because … well because frankly I’m just too lazy during the summers, and I’m also a big baby about outdoor performances.
Auto-da-fair
The Salzburg Festival has long had the image of this place where for a little over a month, the very best singers are brought together with the very best conductors and the very best directors to create the very best productions the opera world has to offer.
Project runway
Some ideas are so absurd that the only way to describe them is to simply use the liner notes.
New faces of 2014
Once upon a time, a man and a woman met. He could sing, she could sing. They fell in love, got married, and became a power couple to rival Billary.
The beautiful rooms are empty
It appears that Mariame Clément’s conception of Don Pasquale is that the opera should be retitled Malatesta.
The ladies in question
There is a truism that there are no small parts, only small singers. Last night’s Così fan tutte has made me consider another possible truism: there are no bad productions, only miscast productions.
Heartbreak fridge
Before there was Verdi’s Otello, Rossini’s Otello was considered the master operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
Red queen
Joyce DiDonato is taking her Mary Stuart on the road, so to speak.
Count me in
The legions of New York opera buffs who now can’t talk about anything but Javier Camarena will be happy to know that there’s now a DVD release
of their new favorite tenor in Rossini’s Le Comte Ory available.
Purity woman
That’s the exact word I’d use to describe Olga Peretyatko’s debut in I Puritani last night at the Metropolitan Opera: “calm.”
State of grace
Lawrence Brownlee’s new album Virtuoso Rossini Arias demonstrate both how far the tenore di grazia has come in the operatic world.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).